Kursk-Root Icon of Our Lady of the Sign

In the 13th century, during the dreadful period of the Tartar invasion of Russia, the
devastated province of Kursk was emptied of people and its principal city, Kursk, became a
wilderness. Now, the residents of the city of Rylsk, which had been preserved from invasion,
often journeyed to the site of Kursk to hunt wild beasts. One of the hunters, going along the
bank of the river to Skal, which was not very far from ruined Kursk, noticed an icon lying face
down on the ground next to the root of a tree. The hunter picked it up and found that it was an
icon of the Sign, such as was enshrined and venerated in the city of Novgorod. At this time, the
icon’s first miracle was worked, for no sooner had the hunter picked up the sacred image
than there immediately gushed forth with great force an abundant spring of pure water. This took
place on September 8th in the year 1295.

The hunter constructed a small wooden chapel and placed the newly manifested image of the
Mother of God therein. The residents of Rylsk began to visit the place of the manifestation of
this holy object and the icon was glorified with even more miracles. Prince Vasily Shemyaka of
Rylsk ordered that the icon be brought to the city of Rylsk. The pious people of the city
solemnly went forth to meet the icon of the Mother of God; but Shemyaka himself declined to
attend the festivities and because of this was struck down with blindness. The prince repented,
however, and straightway he was healed. Moved by this miracle, Shemyaka constructed a church in
the city of Rylsk in honor of the Nativity of the All-holy Theotokos, and there the miraculous
icon was enshrined on September 8th, the day of its manifestation, appointed as the annual feast
date.

But the icon vanished in a miraculous manner and returned to the place of its original
appearance. The residents of Rylsk continually brought it back, but each time it returned to its
former place. Then, understanding that the Mother of God was well pleased that her image remain
in this place, they eventually left it in peace. Innumerable pilgrims streamed to the site and
services of supplication were celebrated there by a priest named Bogoliub, who dwelt at the site
of the wooden chapel and struggled there in asceticism.

In the year 1383, the province of Kursk was subjected to a new invasion of Tartars. The
Tartars decided to set fire to the chapel, but it refused to burn, even though they piled up fuel
all around it, and so the superstitious barbarians fell upon the priest Bogoliub, accusing him of
sorcery. The pious priest denounced their foolishness and pointed to the icon of the Mother of
God. The malicious Tartars laid hold of the holy icon and cut it in two, casting the pieces to
either side. The chapel then caught fire and the priest Bogoliub was carried off a prisoner.

In his captivity, the God-loving elder kept the Faith, placing his hope on the all-holy Mother
of God, and this hope did not fail him. Now, one day as he was guarding flocks and passing the
time by singing prayers and doxologies in honor of the Mother of God, some emissaries of the Tsar
of Moscow happened to pass by.

Hearing the chanting, they arranged to ransom the priest Bogoliub from his captivity. When
Bogoliub returned to the former site of the chapel, he found the pieces of the miraculous icon
which the Tartars had cast away. He picked them up and they immediately grew back together,
although the signs of the split remained. Learning of this miracle, the residents of Rylsk gave
glory to God and to His all-pure Mother. Again they attempted to transfer the holy icon to their
city, but once more the miraculous image returned to its former place. A new chapel was then
built on the original site of the icon’s appearance and there it remained for about 200
years.

The city of Kursk was revived in the year 1597 at the command of Theodore Ivanovich of Moscow.
This pious Tsar, who had heard of the miracles of the icon, expressed his desire to behold it,
and in Moscow, the icon was greeted with great solemnity. The Tsaritsa, Irene Theodorovna,
adorned the holy icon with a precious riza. At the command of the Tsar, the icon was set in a
gold risa upon which were depicted the Lord of Hosts and prophets holding scrolls in their hands.
The icon was subsequently returned and, with the close cooperation of the Tsar, a monastery was
founded on the site of the chapel. A church, dedicated to the Life-bearing Spring, was built
above the same spring that had appeared when the icon was first revealed and the monastery
attached to it was called the Kursk Root Hermitage in honor of the manifestation of the icon at
the root of the tree.

During an invasion of Crimean Tartars, the icon was transferred to the cathedral church of
Kursk, and an exact copy was left at the Hermitage. Tsar Boris Godunov bestowed many precious
gifts for the adornment of the icon and even the pretender, the false Dimitry, who desired to
call attention to himself and to win the support of those who lived in the vicinity of Kursk,
venerated this icon and placed it in the royal mansions where it remained until the year
1615.

While the icon was absent from the city of Kursk, the grace-bearing aid of the Mother of God
did not forsake that city, for when the Poles laid siege to Kursk in the year 1612, residents of
Kursk beheld the Mother of God and two radiant monks above the city. Captured Poles related that
they, too, had seen a woman and two radiant men on the city walls, and that this woman made
threatening gestures at those who were conducting the siege. The citizens of Kursk then made a
vow to construct a monastery in honor of the all-holy Theotokos and to place the miraculous icon
therein. The besiegers were quickly put to flight and in gratitude to their heavenly helper, the
people of Kursk built a monastery in honor of the all-holy Theotokos of the Sign.

In 1676, the icon of the Mother of God of the Sign was borne to the Don River to bless the
forces of the Don Cossacks. In 1684, a copy of the miraculous icon of the all-holy Theotokos of
the Sign was sent to the Monastery of the Root by the sovereigns and great princes Ivan and Peter
Alexievich. This copy was set in a gold risa and a decree was issued stating that this copy was
to be borne wherever Orthodox warriors went into battle.

In the year 1812, the Kursk Civic Society sent to General Kutuzov a copy of the miraculous
icon of Kursk, setting it in a gold risa. The commander expressed his gratitude to the citizens
of Kursk and his belief that Kursk would remain free, thanks to the protection of the Queen of
Heaven.

In March of 1898 a group of anarchists, desiring to undermine the faith of the people in the
wonder-working power of the icon, decided to destroy it. They placed a time bomb in the Cathedral
of the Sign, and at two o'clock in the morning a horrendous explosion rent the air and all the
walls of the monastery were shaken. The frightened monastic brethren rushed immediately to the
cathedral, where they beheld a scene of horrible devastation. The force of the blast had
shattered the gilded canopy above the icon. The heavy marble base, constructed of several massive
steps, had been jolted out of position and split into several pieces. A huge metal candlestick
which stood before the icon had been blown to the opposite side of the cathedral. A door of cast
iron located near the icon had been torn from its hinges and cast outside, where it smashed
against a wall and caused a deep crack. All the windows in the cathedral and even those in the
dome above were shattered. Amid the general devastation, the holy icon remained intact and even
the glass within the frame remained whole. Thinking to destroy the icon, the anarchists had, on
the contrary, become the cause of its greater glorification.

Every year on Friday of the ninth week after Pascha, the icon of the Sign was solemnly borne
in procession from the Kursk Cathedral of the Sign to the place of its original manifestation at
the Kursk Hermitage, where it remained until September 12. On September 13, it was again solemnly
returned to the city of Kursk. This procession was instituted in the year 1618 in memory of the
transfer of the icon from Moscow to Kursk and to commemorate its original appearance.

On April 12, 1918, amidst the chaos of the Bolshevik revolution, the icon was removed from the
Cathedral of the Sign. A search was made for the icon -- but without result. Finally the holy
object was discovered under the following circumstances: Not far from the monastery there lived a
poor girl and her mother who for three days had not had anything to eat. At that time Kursk was
controlled by the Bolshevik regime. On May 3, the girl, a seamstress, went off to the marketplace
in search of bread. Returning home at about one o'clock in the morning, she passed by a well
which, according to tradition, had been dug by St. Theodosius of the Caves. There, on the edge of
the well, she beheld a package wrapped in a sack, and when she opened it, she found the sacred
icon inside, apparently left there by those who had stolen it.

At the end of October 1919, when the White Russian Army was evacuating the city of Kursk,
twelve monks of the monastery transferred the icon to the city of Belgorod, from which it was
again transferred, first to Taganrog and Ekateri nodar, and then to Novorossiisk. During the
evacuation, with the permission of Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky -- who was then President of
the Higher Ecclesiastical Administration in Southern Russia -- the icon was taken aboard the
steamship St. Nicholas by Bishop Theophan of Kursk on March 1, 1920, and was transported to the
city of Thessalonica. On April 3, Bishop Theophan took the icon to the city of Pec, the ancient
capital of Serbia. For four months the icon remained in Pec, and in September, at the request of
Baron Wrangel, it was returned again to the Crimea. A year after departing from the city of
Kursk, on October 29, 1920, the holy image again left its native land during the evacuation of
the White Army and those Russian people who refused to submit to the Soviet regime. After
arriving again in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croatians and Slovenes, with the blessing of
Patriarch Dimitry, the holy icon remained with Bishop Theophan in the Serbian monastery of Yazak
on Frushkaya Mountain. From the end of 1927, the icon was to be found in the Russian church of
the Holy Trinity in the city of Belgrade.

With the blessing of the Synod of Bishops, Bishop Theophan bore the icon around to various
places where Russians of the diaspora dwelt. During World War II, when Belgrade was subject to
bombardment and other tribulations associated with the war, the miraculous icon became a source
of hope for all that approached it with sincere prayer.

The steadfast companion of those Russian people who did not accept the satanic authority, this
great and ancient holy object, which remained in Moscow during the dreadful turmoil of the 17th
century, was removed from Yugoslavia in the autumn of 1944 together with those who once again
were forced to flee the godless regime. From ruined Vienna, the icon was borne to the tranquil
city of Carlsbad to which the Synod of Bishops had been evacuated. With the approach of the
Bolsheviks it was again transferred to Munich in the spring of 1945. The holy icon proved to be
an unending consolation to many thousands of people who were experiencing all the trials and
tribulations of the later years of World War II. From Munich the icon was borne to Switzerland,
France, Belgium, England, Austria, and many cities and detention camps in Germany itself.
Subsequently, the icon was transferred to the New World where it had its permanent residence
first in the New Kursk Hermitage in Mahopac, N.Y., and then in the Synod’s Cathedral Church
of the Mother of God of the Sign in New York City, the residence of the First Hierarch of the
Russian Church Abroad. The icon is commemorated each year on November 27/December 10.